Rhubarb Coffee Cake

This week's dessert theme for the Soup Kitchen was Rhubarb Cake. Such a fine fine example of a seasonal dessert. Like beets, brussels sprouts and artichokes, rhubarb is one of those latecomers introduced fairly recently into my adult diet. And like beets, brussels sprouts and artichokes, I think it's simply divine.

For those of you who are rookies to rhubarb, THIS is a complete guide to rhubarb in all its splendor. Since I'm not a big fan of fruit pies and tarts and the sort, I decided to make a rhubarb coffee cake, upon recommendation. It comes direct from Smitten Kitchen via an older issue of the NY Times. Her pictures trump mine by a million, but I've tried to provide a little bit of competition, if you can even call it that. The recipe is as follows:

Time: 1 1/2 hours, plus cooling

Butter for greasing pan

For the rhubarb filling:
1/2 pound rhubarb, trimmed
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

For the crumbs:
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, melted
1 3/4 cups cake flour (I was out and used all-purpose and it worked great)

For the cake:
1/3 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour (ditto on the all-purpose flour–worked just fine)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons softened butter, cut into 8 pieces.

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease an 8-inch-square baking pan. For filling, slice rhubarb 1/2 inch thick and toss with sugar, cornstarch and ginger. Set aside.

2. To make crumbs, in a large bowl, whisk together sugars, spices, salt and butter until smooth. Stir in flour with a spatula. It will look like a solid dough.

3. To prepare cake, in a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add butter and a spoonful of sour cream mixture and mix on medium speed until flour is moistened. Increase speed and beat for 30 seconds. Add remaining sour cream mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition, and scraping down the sides of bowl with a spatula. Scoop out about 1/2 cup batter and set aside.

4. Scrape remaining batter into prepared pan. Spoon rhubarb over batter. Dollop set-aside batter over rhubarb; it does not have to be even.

5. Using your fingers, break topping mixture into big crumbs, about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in size. They do not have to be uniform, but make sure most are around that size. Sprinkle over cake. Bake cake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean of batter (it might be moist from rhubarb), 45 to 55 minutes. Cool completely before serving.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

I have lost my mind a little bit today and started using a 1/2 tablespoon measuring spoon instead of the 1 tsp portion. I also forgot to dust the top with powdered sugar, which would have made it look immensely better. I guess every cook has her off days, right? Hopefully it tasted as good as it looked....